Unfair Dismissal Claim

Anna worked for a firm of engineering consultants as their office manager. She was well regarded and trusted by the owners of the business. Unfortunately their trust was misplaced because Anna was on the quiet making overtime payments to herself which were not authorised. Her Contract gave her no right to overtime pay and she had not asked the managing director if she could be paid for working extra hours.

When the payments came to light Anna was initially suspended on full pay and then called to a disciplinary hearing.

Her defence was that the previous office manager, Mr A, had told her that she was entitled to overtime pay and secondly, that the payroll was checked and signed off by one of the senior engineers, Mr B, every month.

The two directors chairing the disciplinary hearing did not believe Anna but they did not check with either A or B whether what she had said was true.

She was dismissed and appealed. Her appeal was chaired by two directors, one of whom had been involved in the disciplinary hearing. Not surprisingly they also believed she was guilty and again decided there was no point in speaking to Mr A or Mr B.

Anna was guilty but nevertheless she claimed unfair dismissal on two counts.

Firstly, that Mr A and Mr B should have been asked whether what she was saying was true or not and secondly, that it was unfair for someone who had been involved in dismissing her to be involved in her appeal.

So was Anna unfairly dismissed or not?

If her employer had not invited her to a disciplinary hearing and given her a right of appeal then her dismissal would have been automatically unfair (even though she was guilty of fraud) and any compensation would have been increased by between 10% and 50%. However, her employer did comply with the minimum standard. The Tribunal concluded that had the employer followed a fair procedure she would still have been dismissed and so she lost.